One of the challenges in any large emergency is dealing with spontaneous volunteers. People come out of the woodwork to help, but unfortunately, this creates a serious resource crisis for emergency response programs.
When resources are limited, focus must be given towards deploying the known volunteers before the new volunteers can be processed, background checked and skill-matched to assist in any valuable way.
Today, we are going to ask you to consider a very serious task: becoming pre-affliated with an emergency response or relief organization BEFORE disaster strikes. Because being pre-affliated is so important, it will be worth +5 points today.
DAY 20 ACTIVITY: You have three ways to earn your points today
If you are already preaffliated with an emergency response or relief organization, just tell us who you are affliated with. This will be worth +5 points.
If you have yet to affiliate, but are willing to sign up to take an organization's orientation training, you will earn +5 points. (The training need not be completed in September, but your application should be.)
If you are unable to affiliate or believe you never would, admitting this will also be worth +1 because hopefully, we'll have caused you to consider the value of this engagement.
If you aren't sure where to start with getting preaffiliated with a disaster response organization, here are some local ones to consider in SW Washington and Portland:
- Clark Regional Emergency Operations Center (Get registered to help out in our agency!)
- American Red Cross: SW Washington Chapter / Oregon Trail Chapter
- Citizen Emergency Response Teams
- Medical Reserve Corp
- Volunteer Mobilization Center
- Neighbors On Watch
- Amateur Radio
- Trauma Intervention Program (TIP)
- Search and Rescue Programs
PROOF: Tell us whether you are preaffiliated, will get preaffiliated or won't be preaffiliated in the following ways:
- Leave a comment with your answer in it on this blog post.
- You can put your answer on the CRESA Facebook Fan Page or tag CRESA in a note, if you are recording your activities on your own page.
- You can post the answers on Twitter (please include @CRESA or hashtag #30days30ways in your tweets)
- If you are uncomfortable sharing this information online, you may email your answer /picture to: cheryl.bledsoe@clark.wa.gov
Answers may be submitted on all tasks anytime between now and midnight on 9/30/10.
6 comments:
CERT trained a couple of years ago and a NOW volunteer as well...
I am affiliated with CRESA :)
I have been looking into CERT training for about a year now. (ever since teaching the BSA Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge) I even talked to the volunteers at the CRESA event about the upcoming classes in my area. The problem has been scheduling - I have so many conflicts with work travel that I can never attend all of the modules. Not sure how to get around this problem. :(
I am NDART (National Disaster Animal Response Team), EARS (Emergency Animal Rescue Service) trained and affiliated with CRESA on the animal side. I have completed ICS and NIMS training.
I'd never considered this before but my application to CRESA EOC is on it's way! If accepted I'd be honored to serve.
Do I just get the five points for this one? I am not sure I have enough affiliations.... ;-) I am getting on another team... the Seattle Metro Incident Management Team.
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